Six Indian-Americans among Ellis Island Medal of Honour

PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, author Fareed Zakaria are amongst six Indian-Americans nominated for the prestigious Ellis Island Medal of Honour 2017 — the highest civilian award in the US for immigrants.

Among 88 named recipients, the four other Indian- Americans are Harman International Industries chairman CEO Dinesh Paliwal, Dr Annapoorna S Kini, Yashvant Patel, Mohan H Patel, as well as Pakistani-American Dr Adil Haider.

Nooyi has been the CEO at PepsiCo since 2006 and chairman since 2007.

She was previously the president and chief financial officer at the company, as well as senior vice president, and senior vice president of corporate strategy and development.

Zakaria is the host of CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" as well as a columnist for The Washington Post. He has also served as a columnist at Newsweek, an editor at Newsweek International and editor-at-large of Time.

Paliwal has served as the president and CEO at Harman since July 2007 and later became the chairman in 2008.

The Ellis Island Medal of Honour founded by the National Ethnic Coalition of Organisations (NECO) are given annually to individuals whose accomplishments in their field and service to the country are cause for celebration, NECO said.

Since its inception in 1986, the medal has been officially recognised by both Houses of Congress as one of the nation's most prestigious awards.

NECO has honoured distinguished and diverse Americans, including six presidents of the US, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as esteemed Americans such as Frank Sinatra, lee Iacocca, Quincy Jones, Muhammad Ali, Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, louis Zamperini and Rosa Parks.

The 2017 recipients will be honoured at a May 13 event on Ellis Island in New York.